A one-legged sex offender has admitted abusing a young girl who came forward after reading he had been convicted of other sex offences.

A one-legged sex offender has admitted abusing a young girl who came forward after reading he had been convicted of other sex offences.

Prosecutor Shaun Dodds said Kenneth Walker, 68, of Brinkburn Road, Darlington, was jailed for four years in July last year for indecent assault on a girl aged seven.

A woman who read a report of the case in a newspaper came forward to say Walker also indecently assaulted her when he was babysitting for her when she was a child, Teesside Crown Court was told yesterday.

Walker admitted two specimen counts of indecent assault and one count of gross indecency with a girl aged nine. The offences all took place between 1987 and 1995.

The court heard the victim, now an adult, said Walker had assaulted her ten times in total. On one occasion he had made her perform a sex act on him.

Mr Dodds said Walker told police that if the girl said these things happened, they must have happened, because she was "a lovely girl, not a liar. She wouldn't make things up".

Walker, who lost a leg when hit by a train aged 21, had also been jailed for two years for indecent assault on a 12-year-old in 1983, said Mr Dodds.

Mitigating for Walker, Robert Terry said by pleading guilty he had spared the victim the trauma of having to testify in court.

He said the father-of-four had not had a partner since his wife left him 26 years ago. He added: "He is in my submission essentially a mild mannered and rather frail old man, perhaps unable to attract a partner in the usual way."

High Court judge Mr Justice Ouseley sentenced Walker to a further 15 months to run consecutive to the sentence he was already serving.

Walker will also have to sign the Sex Offenders Register for the rest of his life.